The Magician
by Five Minutes Til Bedtime
Summary: When he was little, Harry Potter's favorite show was Doctor Who. One-shot. Not a crossover.


Title: **The Magician**

Fandom: Harry Potter (with elements of Doctor Who)

Summary: When he was little, Harry Potter's favorite show was Doctor Who. One-shot. Not a crossover.

Word Count: 1,800

* * *

When Dudley Dursley was little (relatively, at least) his very favorite show was Doctor Who.

In the long run, this small fact didn't mean a thing for the man the Dudley grew up to be. But for the small child who lived in the cupboard under the stairs, the one who strained his ears each night for the sounds of the telle that he wasn't allowed to watch, that lured him to bed like the bedtime stories that he never heard – for him, this fact was of upmost importance.

While other little children were dreaming of princesses with long golden hair and little red hens and girls in red riding cloaks, the boy in the cupboard was exploring the stars that came to life in his imagination each night. He was thinking of a man with many faces and of worlds where people like the Dursley's didn't dare step foot and of a place like his cupboard - small but so, so much bigger on the inside.

And when the boy came out of the cupboard and became Harry Potter, Dudley's freakish cousin, he knew from the first second how to run,though he'd never done it before. Harry could run like he could dream – that is, very well. And he really, really liked running. He'd throw back his head and laugh because the Doctor had taught him that laughing when you were scared was okay because then you didn't have to be scared. Dudley's gang would chase him – sometimes, they caught him and sometimes they didn't – but he'd never just stand there and take it and he'd never hit back. There were other options, the Doctor had taught him. Running was one of them. And running didn't have to mean defeat.

There was also talking. The Doctor _loved _to talk. Most of the time he'd talk so fast and so strangely Harry would lay for long hours at night trying to muddle out the words in the dark. Harry didn't talk often because there weren't many people to talk too, but when he did his words were fast and they were strong. He'd leave Dudley standing stupidly or his teacher's bamboozled as he ran off. Talking and running – it worked.

Eventually Dudley stopped watching Doctor Who and the voices stopped drifting into Harry's cupboard. That was okay though. The Doctor had already taught Harry more than a fictional character had the right to and Harry was _thirsty _for more. He went to the school library and looked at books about the stars. He read things about time travel and aliens and saw that there really was quite a big place existing outside of Privet Drive. A place Harry had never seen though he desperately wanted to.

Then one day, he decided that it was time. Strange and mysterious things were always happening around Harry, from turning his teacher's wig blue to making things shake when he was really, really angry. If he had been anyone else, Harry probably would have shrugged it off and pretended it was all his head, but Harry had been raised in the stars where impossible didn't exist. The day that he found himself standing on the school roof as though the wind had picked him up and deposited him there was the day that Harry decided it was time for him to go.

He spent month of very hard work trying to replicate what had happened that day. It was hard at first, as most things worth his time were, but he knew what he wanted to do and was not afraid. Then one day he _moved _himself from one corner of the yard to the other – the next day, he did it twice. In a week he could go from his cupboard to the end of the block without lifting a foot. In one month, he could go anywhere he wanted to with nothing but a picture in his head and a lot of concentration.

The day before the first owl arrived, Harry packed up his backpack and left Privet Drive forever. No one but the spiders missed him.

A ten year old boy, soon to be eleven, travelling alone down the streets of Florence or getting ice cream from street vendors in New York City should have caused a ruckus, but no one seemed to notice Harry unless he wanted them to. He never used money. Mostly he learned just to smile very, very widely at shopkeepers and say polite things to nice ladies to get them to give him things to eat. Not to be indebted, Harry usually repaid them by fixing something that was troubling them – be it a squeaky door, a bad marriage, or a string of robberies. Harry quickly learned how to use his powers to make the things he wanted to see happen and he never left anywhere without making life better for someone.

His motto in life was simple: What would the Doctor do?

It was easy. Travelling to a new town, meeting people (good and bad), and fixing problems. He never stayed long but he always left an impression.

He asked them to call him the Magician, because it quickly dawned on him that what he was doing was magic.

Over the next few years, across all corners of the globe, the Magician's name began appearing again and again.

By the time he was fifteen, he had to be careful where he landed for pictures of him taken by the people he encountered (friend and foe) began circulating across the internet. The media sometimes ran stories about the mysterious boy who appeared all around the world. They took it as a joke until the first time he saved the world.

There was an epidemic going on – a new strand of the flu which acted fast and had no ready cure. It began in China and quickly spread to the rest of the world. Nations went on lock down. Schools shut down. People walked around when they dared leave their houses with face masks and wary eyes. The scientists didn't have a clue and people were dying.

Harry, having been traveling in the remotest parts of Northern Russia for a while, frowned over a little girl's sick coughing and silently pressed his hands against her heart and willed the illness away. The villagers hailed him as a hero and, at his confusion, wheeled out the only telle in the town and turned on the news.

The next day, Harry walked into the top cure researching facilities in every nation and handed them a large tank of clear liquid with instructions to add a drop to every source of water in their respective country. He never told them that it was just water and that only his will made it something special. By the next day the flu was extinct.

In a moment, the Magician went from a shadowed name to a worldwide phenomenon. People were interviewed, sketches were taken, and stories about Harry that were previously hidden way found themselves in the spot light once again.

Meanwhile, Harry walked around a little town in Mexico drinking rice milk and blinking as an owl appeared in the middle of nowhere with a letter.

He pet the owl, read the letter, and _moved _to stand outside of a little place called The Leaky Cauldron in an instant. The letter was a plea for help.

He entered the wizarding world and the wizarding world stopped to stare. Patrons within the pub watched helplessly gobsmacked as a teen with messy black hair, brilliant green eyes, and _that scar_ asked them politely where he could find Albus Dumbledore or the Ministry of Magic. When Harry departed with the instructions to Hogwarts given to him by a very nervous Tom, none of the patrons would be able to describe anything about the boy but a ridiculously wide smile and an infectious laugh.

Harry walked into Hogwarts and the castle hummed around him. He placed his hands on her walls and wondered if this was what the Doctor felt like when he entered the TARDIS for the very first time and found home. He continued on.

The headmaster, he found, was eating in the Great Hall that was populated by a large student body in robes that liked to point and gawk at him. Harry liked the headmaster at once, even though the first words out of the old man's mouth were a hushed and reverent, "Harry Potter."

Like the Doctor, Harry's real name didn't feel like his real name any more.

"It's the Magician, actually," he corrected easily. "You're Mr. Dumbledore? I got your letter and I'm here to help. What seems to be the problem?"

The Great Hall exploded into whispers that Harry didn't bother to hear. Dumbledore looked, astonished and (almost amused) stunned at the sight of him. Then, right there, with his eyes twinkling, he told Harry a story a Dark Lord and a terrifying reign of evil and torture.

Harry, who knew no fairy tales, heard a story of a young boy much like himself who was frightened and hurt and had turned angry.

Dumbledore asked Harry to kill the Dark Lord.

Harry frowned and said no.

"I don't kill people, Mr. Dumbledore. Ever." _There was always another way. _

Dumbledore frowned and shook his head sadly. He asked what then, if anything, Harry would do. Harry left the Great Hall, left Hogwarts, and _moved_.

He found a library and stared reading. Three days later he found his answer.

He stole into the Ministry of Magic and stole a time turner. He crept into Lucius Malfoy's manor and silently followed him as he _moved _to an old house covered in vines and darkness. He walked down the long hallways following a peculiar tug in his body that led him straight in the Dark Lord's throne room.

Voldemort stared at Harry Potter.

The Dark Lord stared at the Magician.

The Master stared at the Doctor.

Voldemort raised his wand and Harry threw the time turner. In the next moment there was bright flash. Harry felt something dark and ugly leave his body as the green spell hit, something he had never noticed before but felt incredibly lighter without. He grinned.

The time turner broke against Voldemort's skin. The golden powder settled onto the Dark Lord's skin.

Then the Dark Lord began to shrink – no, not shrink – deage. His snake-like form became a man in his late forties, then thirties, then twenties and then -

Harry gently blew the golden dust off the top of the eleven year old's head. Dark brown eyes met brilliant grin in bewilderment. In that moment the doors slammed open and Death Eaters poured in, wand ready.

Harry Potter grabbed Tom Riddle's hand and laughed.

"Run!"


End file.
